Category Archives: outrigger

A few years ago I realized that being healthy and strong was critical to my overall well-being. In fact I began to see that when I was healthy, everything else in my life flowed better. As a result, each time I sit down to set goals, healthiness is at the top of my list: to walk as well as I can, to do strength training, and to maintain my joint health.

For me being healthy is also one of my biggest challenges. Because I’m an amputee I can’t just take up jogging five miles a day, so I find that I have to be a lot more creative in the ways that I exercise. I also have learned that I can’t do this alone, so I have coaches and friends who keep me motivated to keep at my health routines.

What I like about this schedule is that it is a good mix of activities that I genuinely enjoy. And I also like that it is a mix of solo exercise and group/team exercise. What I don’t like: is that I don’t get ample cardio exercise. I also feel like I ought to incorporate more stretching into my regular routines, such as a deep stretching/yoga workout on Tues/Thurs mornings. And I must confess that the first thing to go in this schedule is my Wednesday yoga class–it is so hard to keep that commitment between teaching into the evenings on Tuesday and Thursday (and also one Wednesday per month I am at our South County campus too late in the evening to get to my yoga class).

I also just feel like overall it’s not enough. I’m not as tone as I used to be and I definitely get creaky and injured far more easily than I did even five years ago (not to mention having put on 10 pounds that is definitely not muscle). But I can barely keep up with this routine on top of my work and teaching, so I can’t really imagine adding more (like swimming, I really want to add swimming–but when?).

I guess I’m curious if any of you can suggest ways that I could squeeze in a bit more exercise here and there, or if you want to share your fitness plans with me, as something I might emulate?

(Note: photo taken 6 years ago, when my friend Crystal was doodling on my shoulders–that’s not permanent ink…)

Last week we did a fairly strenuous canoe paddle, more than 60km, in a remote northern area of British Columbia. The paddling wasn’t so daunting (3-4 hours per day of solid work), but it was the portages from lake to lake, the lightning storms, and the persistent pelting rain that quickly dampened my sleeping bag and all of my clothing that took their toll.

Now that it’s over, however, so much of that difficulty is forgotten. And instead what remains are the gorgeous images imprinted into my memory and onto the roll of film that we shot as we traveled. Such as this one, taken on the home stretch to Bowron Lake:

(Note: the horizon is slightly crooked due to the boat leaning a bit to the right side that morning)

As I was writing in my journal when the journey was completed, the first thing I put on my list of lessons learned was:

I like to do hard things

And it’s true. The stretch of an ambitious endeavor makes me happy. Doing the mundane, the repetitive, the easily achieved task…boring. I thrive when presented with a challenge, which is why the trip to British Columbia was so much more appealing than a resort stay or some other leisure activity.

I just finished reading Tracks today, which is a book about a woman who walked across the Australian desert with four camels in the 1970s. At the close of the text, this quotation jumped out at me, as a better expression of my thoughts about hard things, than I expressed myself in my journal (emphasis my own):

As I look back on the trip now, as I try to sort out fact from fiction, try to remember how I felt at that particular time, or during that particular incident, try to relive those memories that have been buried so deep, and distorted so ruthlessly, there is one clear fact that emerges from the quagmire. The trip was easy. It was no more dangerous than crossing the street, or driving to the beach, or eating peanuts. The two important things that I did learn were that you as powerful and as strong as you allow yourself to be, and that the most difficult part of any endeavor is taking the first step, making the first decision.

Not too long ago I found myself in a “Strategic IT” meeting we were discussing where we each sit on the curve of change. The discussion leader drew something a bit like this on his whiteboard and asked us each to come up and put a mark where we would be in the curve of adopting to technological changes.

He then asked: Were we on the leading edge? Or did we follow the crowd?

Various colleagues got up and put a mark somewhere on the curve, most of them right around the big bump (those who tended to jump on the bandwagon with everyone else) and a few afterwards (those folks said that they usually waited to whether a technology was likely to last before they adopted it). I was one of the last people to go up to the sign and leave my mark.

This is where I put myself (note: I was the only person to draw a picture, but I’m dorky like that):

I then told the group a story that’s become a touchstone for me…

When I first began canoeing on the ocean, it was pretty scary to be surrounded by wide open water. The swell could be a low rolling bump that gave a gentle nudge to the boat or the entire ocean could be flat as a pancake, where you had to dig in your paddle to do all the work. But of course there was also the possibility of really big swell. And the first time I encountered that, it was unforgettable. Continue reading →

Winter is “off-season” for outrigger canoeing, so my team doesn’t practice regularly. It is a much less-desirable time of year for being on the water–it’s cold, stormy, and the days are short.

But it’s precisely all of those undesirable reasons that make off-season paddling so fun to me. There’s a small hardy band of half-a-dozen paddlers that comes together every Wednesday for a nighttime jaunt–an easy 8 miles or so of canoeing from the Back Bay to the Harbor mouth (and when we’re lucky, all the way out to the bell buoy). There’s an irreverence to the off-season that is potty humor and in-jokes, plenty of near-misses with docks and channel markers and whatever mysterious dark detritus floating alongside our boat (a dead sea lion? a dead bird? a bag of beach trash?). But it is also the beauty of bioluminescent plankton and a sky full of stars. It is a Jerry moonlight serenade after we cross the PCH bridge and it is Lynn’s unmistakable and infectious laugh. It is pirates at Halloween and twinkling lights for the holiday parade. It is cold toes and noses and ears and fingers, and that occasional balmy Santa Ana breeze that greets us as we round the bend of the Back Bay. It is paddling for the for the sheer joy of being on the water and in the water, with friends.

But tonight regular Team Imua season practice begins. It is time to prepare for races, to polish our form and build our strength. Of course that’s all good (especially the strengthening part), but I’ll still be missing the off-season, more than a bit.

Last year I set a HUGE goal for myself: to train for the qualifying race to win a spot on the U.S. paracanoe team heading to the 2013 World Sprints. It’s a particularly ambitious goal because I’m switching from the 6-man long distance ocean canoeing that I’ve been doing for several years to paddling a rudderless canoe in short flatwater sprints. But, I decided that there was no time like the present to set my sights on something ambitious. So, to cement my plan I bought a plane ticket to the race and began training in earnest.

Then a few months ago, I started realizing that something funny was going on with my left (read: my only) foot. My ankle was swelling and my toes felt numb. Because the numbness often occurred when I was sitting in my canoe, I assumed that there was something wrong with the design of my seat and that my nerves were being pinched. Until I went in for a routine physical.

My doctor found a mass in my pelvis during my exam. And then a follow-up ultrasound showed that there were two masses (for the record, I’ve now christened those two lumps “Scylla” and “Charybdis”). More tests came back and I learned that I have three different medical issues that each warrant some surgical intervention.

For someone who’s had cancer before, this news was not easy. Tears. Fears. Why me. And most of all, why now–when my body is stronger than it’s ever been?

There’re still a lot of medical questions and I’m in the process of getting answers. In the meantime I’m in some pain–both emotional and physical. I have good days and some not-so-good ones. I’m not out in my canoe as often right now, although I’m swimming regularly to maintain conditioning. I started yoga again–my body craving the stretching and breathing at this time when things are out of sorts.

But above all, I’ve been questioning whether my goal was a ridiculous one. I’ve been asking myself, “Who am I, for crying out loud, to think that I could be an athlete?” I’ve wondered whether I pushed too hard, and at what cost.

So it was bittersweet news a few days ago to open an award letter from the Challenged Athletes Foundation, to learn that I’d earned the funds I needed to finance my racing goal–a grant that I had applied for many months ago. I cried and cheered and then sat in the sun on the back porch and pondered what it really meant for me, right now.

And this is what it means. I will probably not be in that qualifying race in New York in July that I’d originally aimed for because I need time for recovery and to build my strength again after surgery. But that doesn’t mean that the HUGE goal is gone. There will be other outrigger races and I will get stronger. Again and again.

I’m remembering a meeting I had with a university athletics coach recently. I told him a bit about my background and my racing goal and as I did so he sort of shook his head a bit. And then he repeated it back to me: “You had cancer when you were 12 and you lost your leg. Then ten years ago went back to school and started a PhD program and then finished it, as a single Mom of two teens. And then you started a new sport five years ago after never being particularly athletic and now you want to compete internationally.” He paused for a bit and I expected him to laugh at me–this crazy one-legged woman that he’d just met and who had described such a circuitous life story. Instead, he replied: “Then my money is on you to win that race.”

So come Scylla, come Charybdis, or whatever else life might throw my way…I’m going for this one like I have with so many other things. One step at a time, one day at a time. And with the knowledge that working towards a huge goal is more of a reward than anything that happens at the finish line.

Photo above of one of my all-time favorite IMUA races–our canoe had started the race DFL and worked hard enough to finish just behind the boats that medaled. What an amazing feeling to have worked so hard together and to have accomplished so much…

This post feels a bit like a PSA rather than a typical pilgrimsteps post. But I wanted to share my experience with PPIs just in case it might be of help to some of you….

Last year I struggled to paddle because of severe back pain that was due to some problems with my prosthesis. But it wasn’t just back pain, it was horrible painful muscle spasms that I had in my back, but also happened just about anywhere whenever I exercised vigorously. My muscles just simply didn’t seem to be responding well to exercise–I was continuously fatigued and got cramps easily no matter what type of supplement I tried.

As a result, I quit paddling about halfway through last season.*

It wasn’t until a few months later that a lightbulb went on in my head as I talked with a friend about my chronic gastric reflux problems. She told me that long-term use of over-the-counter PPIs did have long-term side effects (despite my thinking that they were nearly-benign meds) and that one of those was mineral loss. I realized that the muscle cramping symptoms that I was experiencing were quite similar to the problems I’d had more than a decade previous when I was calcium deficient. Given that I already have the double-whammy of bone density loss from being female and from having had high-dose chemotherapy, I started to become nervous about my dependence on PPIs to get me through dinnertime (it was almost always dinner that gave me problems–causing acid reflux for hours afterwards).

So…I stopped taking the PPIs cold-turkey and modified my diet as much as I could to compensate (such as no citrus or tomatoes and more yogurt). Within a few weeks my acid reflux symptoms mostly disappeared–with only an occasional flare-up during stress. And I found that I regained my muscle endurance fairly quickly after that.

I know that PPIs are necessary for many people and I’m not suggesting, necessarily, that you do what I did and stop taking them. But I think it’s worth reading this recent article that warns of their side-effects, and to consider whether they are drugs that you really do need to be taking regularly. In my case, I think the PPIs caused me to exercise less which exacerbated my reflux and led to weight gain (weight gain being one of the major contributors to reflux issues). And I needed to get off the PPIs to I could become more active and healthy again. My hope now is that the year I spent taking them won’t result in any long-term effect on my bone density.

*Additional motivation for quitting mid-season was due to some problems with my coach and the need to focus on my studies. But the major reason was that I was in terrible pain each time I tried to paddle, I and I simply couldn’t figure out why my body was hurting so badly.

2) Novice Open House for the IMUA outrigger paddling team. Everyone is welcome to join us and try their hand at this sport. January 29th, 9-11am at NorthStar Beach (next to Newport Aquatic Center), Newport Beach.

This has been a week of hard work and travel. It’s the end of the semester crunch, I’ve been in the last stages of training for the opening of my outrigger season, and have layered on to that some significant obligations to friends and family. Oh, and also…I’ve found a house for the kids and I to move into later this summer (a house with roses, no less. Roses. And did I mention roses?)…

As I look out at the months to come, I feel a lot like those wide open vistas that I encountered coming down highway 89 in Arizona last weekend. There’s so much ahead. Some of it is mysterious and indistinct. Some of it I can see clearly, but it’s going to be a bit of a climb. And some of it still lies around the bend in the road and I have no idea what will emerge as I move forward.

About four hours in to each of my long outrigger races, the shakes begin. I’m cold, but bundling up for warmth does almost nothing to reduce the jitters. It’s that point where my body says ‘no more.’ It wants me to stop. And it takes everything to keep going…

When I was traveling around Boston and visiting with friends that I hadn’t seen for a year, a few mentioned that I’d changed. Getting a full-time job seems to have altered me at a metabolic level–I am not only thinking about work most of the time (and rather tied at the hip to my computer just in case something goes terribly awry), but I’m also far less to prone to just relaxing. My major realization from the Exponent retreat was that I need to make sure to keep space in my life for the things that calm me. Like friends and nephews and picture books and long walks and wading. One symbol of the way I “let go” over the weekend was that when my Prezi for my talk didn’t materialize (due to being saved on the Internet and I didn’t have any ‘net access at the camp), I let it go and I didn’t beat myself up about it…

But let me back up a bit, back to the shakes… I don’t think I mentioned here that I accomplished the Catalina crossing once again. We had a wicked south-pulling current and it was a longer-than-long race–my GPS marked 37.7miles, and 6.5 hours of paddling. I steered two long pieces, and afterwards my forearms were so sore from trying to hold the paddle in place against the waves, that they kept rapidly cramping and contracting–resulting in my fingers twisting into strange claw-like shapes. When I got off the boat after the finish line, John was snapping photos. Later, he said he wasn’t going to show me the pics because they were so unflattering—I can only imagine how tired I must have looked. It’s one of those accomplishments that doesn’t feel good until a few days later, when the body has had time for some repair work…

So as I’ve finished the team outrigger season and now have some more space in my life, I’m considering where I’ll look next for my exercise and my fun. I feel as though I need a bit less of the long-haul endurance work–both at work and at play. I want to continue to develop my strength, but I also want to just “be.” I need to remember what that feels like. Again.